Inside Yemen's Houthi militants: What they believe and how they threaten the West as part of Iran's ‘axis of resistance'

New York Post

08-05-2025

When President Trump announced Yemen's Houthi militants had agreed to lay down their arms and would no longer disrupt shipping in the Red Sea earlier this week, the terrorist group was quick to point out the ceasefire did not include their arch enemy, Israel.
The Islamic fundamentalist group, said to number 20,000 fighters, have been amassing weapons and learning tactics – largely through their main backers, Iran – which have pulled them from a small regional faction into striking international targets.
The group is more powerful than most people realize, having launched more than 100 attacks in the Red Sea Since November 2023 on both military and commercial vessels off the coast of Yemen, significantly disrupting global trade.
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6 Houthi terrorists fired a missile that hit just outside the Ben Gurion International Airport on the outskirts of Tel Aviv earlier this week. Israel responded with strikes against the Sanaa airport in the Yemeni capital as well as the country's Hodeidah port.
Xinhua/Shutterstock
After barrages of missile and drone attacks, earlier this week the Houthis fired a missile which landed near Israel's main civilian airport on the outskirts of Tel Aviv — an attack over a distance of 1,500 miles. It prompted retaliatory airstrikes on the airport in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, 'fully disabling' it, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Three people died in the attack, according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV.
Airstrikes by the UK and US militaries against the Houthis have taken place since 2024, with renewed and more intense operations since March 15 this year, hitting over 1,000 targets including facilities where drones are manufactured, fuel depots and supply chains. Among the Houthis targets in the red sea have been the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier.
Tensions have been high between Israel and the Houthis since the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks on Israel that left 1,200 Israelis dead. The Houthis claim they target any ship linked to Israel and its allies, including those of the US and UK, but in practice have targeted many vessels not associated with the country.
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Also known as 'Ansar Allah' (supporters of God), the Houthis are a Zaidi Shia Muslim sect which emerged in the 1990s. They only gained international notoriety in September 2014 when they took over Sanaa by force.
6 Yemenis brandish weapons during a demonstration ordered by Houthi terrorists last month.
AFP via Getty Images
They now control swaths of territory in the northern part of the country although 'a very weak Yemeni government' – backed by regional Sunni Muslim allies, including Saudi Arabia – is still in place in the south, a military analyst said.
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Yemen is roughly 65 percent Sunni Muslim, while the rest is a mixture of different Shia Muslim cults, backed by Iran, the region's Shia superpower.
'They are a terrorist state within a state,' said John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, comparing the Houthis hold in Yemen to Hezbollah's control over parts of Lebanon.
Zaidi Shia, a practice almost exclusively practiced in Yemen, subscribes to the belief that the imam, the top religious leader, obtains leadership through religious learning rather than through a divine designation. The Houthis are fiercely anti-American and anti-Israeli and very hardline in their beliefs.
'They want to bring back the caliphate,' Spencer told The Post, referring to an Islamic form of government. Among their slogans is 'God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.'
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The group has aligned itself with Iran's Axis of Resistance, a web of terrorist groups that includes Hezbollah and Hamas.
6 Houthis have mobilized child soldiers — some as young as 13 — in the battle against the Yemeni government.
AFP via Getty Images
The Houthis have a military edge in terms of their geographic position near important ports and shipping routes and use of Iranian-made weapons to 'threaten everyone's shipping' in the Red Sea — a major route connecting Asia and Europe, Spencer said.
'They've been punching above their weight in the alliance of terror proxies,' said Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran Program Senior Director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
'They are the only Iranian proxy to have anti-ship ballistic missiles and have moved to the front of the line of the Islamic Republic's proxies, especially after the collapse of [Bashir] Assad in Syria and the neutering of Hezbollah and Hamas [in Lebanon and Gaza respectively].'
6 The ongoing civil war in Yemen has resulted in a humanitarian emergency with a collapsed economy and an estimated 17 million people on the verge of starvation, according to the UN.
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In addition to their control of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the Houthis have waged a military campaign against Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen to the north.
The battle has been raging since the Houthis first accused the Saudis of backing the government in Sanaa during Yemen's civil war, which turned into a national conflict when the Houthis laid siege to the capital a decade ago.
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The armed struggle has resulted in dire economic and humanitarian crises that have left nearly 400,000 dead, and 4.5 million displaced from their homes, according to United Nations statistics. More than 17 million in the country live with 'acute hunger,' according to the UN's World Food Program.
In 2022, a UN-brokered truce with Oman ended most of the fighting between the Houthis and Saudis, but Houthi terrorists have continued to attack ships on the Red Sea, according to reports.
6 Houthi fighters inspect the area of a US air strike in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in March.
AFP via Getty Images
In March, the US State Department designated the Houthis a terrorist organization — after various flip-flopping about their designation during the Biden administration.
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'The Islamic Republic free rides on grievances in the Muslim world,' said Ben Taleblu, adding that Iranian leaders used the civil war in Yemen to recruit the Houthis as proxies.
For their part, the Houthis are using the conflict in Gaza in order to strike out against Israel, he said.
'I don't think the Houthis think much of the Palestinians but it's a convenient excuse to attack Israel,' said Spencer.
6 Houthi supporters raise an image of their leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi. He took over the movement after the death of his brother, who was killed by Yemeni security forces in 2004.
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Like other Iranian proxies, the Houthis have recruited children as young as 13 to be soldiers — a war crime, according to Human Rights Watch. Although they have actively recruited children since 2009, the practice grew exponentially since October 7, the human rights group said.
The group is led by Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the brother of the group's founder Hussein al-Houthi, who was killed by Yemeni security forces in 2004.
And they talk out of two sides of their mouth, analysts say. When President Trump announced the Houthis 'just don't want to fight' anymore, leaders immediately took to Al Jazeera to say they will still be on the attack against Israel.
'It's a way for the Islamic Republic to divide the US from Israel,' said Ben Taleblu, adding that the Saudis have 'real doubts' about the US commitment to them. 'It's part of their [Iran's] playbook to put distance between America and its partners in the Persian Gulf.'